


Fragments

by kathierif_fic



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Losers (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Family, Community: avengers_xbb, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathierif_fic/pseuds/kathierif_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why do you think I’m going to be disappointed?”</p>
<p>Jake shrugged with one shoulder.</p>
<p>“I’m not the kind of perfect supersoldier they - you - have probably hoped for.”</p>
<p>Steve leaned back in his own chair and grinned. “Neither am I.” He tilted his head to the side and regarded Jake for a long moment. “Maybe we should start from the beginning.”</p>
<p>Or: Two soldiers meet in a Hydra cell, but there’s more to it than both Steve Rogers and Jake Jensen are aware of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragments

**Author's Note:**

> written for the challenge at [Avengers-XBB](http://avengers-xbb.livejournal.com).
> 
> Artwork by [Elenora@lj.com](http://elenorasweet.livejournal.com) TBA
> 
> Million billion thanks to Eve, for handholding, Losers-watching, plot-talking, and everything in between with and for me, and thanks to the organizers of the challenge for a great experience.

~~~ _now_ ~~~

 

Jake looked up with an unreadable expression on his face. The lenses of his glasses reflected the overhead lights, and there were still faint bruises on his biceps, almost hidden by the sleeves of his t-shirt and invisible unless one knew where to look.

Steve knew where to look. He knew exactly how Jake had acquired those bruises, whose fingers had dug deep enough into his skin to leave them.

Jake’s lips twitched slightly. “I bet you’re really disappointed right now,” he said. He sounded amused enough, but Steve couldn’t help but think it was just a mask. A mask like the one Steve wore, hiding his real thoughts and feelings. 

He regarded him calmly.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said. “But I’m curious about you.”

He had no reason to be disappointed. He didn’t know enough about Jake to form any kind of opinion besides the fact that he was quick on his feet and had a razorsharp mind that didn’t crack under pressure. That was everything he cared about. The things in the file Fury had shown him were not important.

“Trust me,” Jake said and slowly leaned back into his chair, his long legs sprawled out under the table. He was wearing scruffed combat boots, and he looked comfortable in them, the same way Clint did, as if he’d spent a long time in them and had gotten so used to them that he put them on in the morning out of habit more than anything else. His casual sprawl was as much a mask as his carefully bland face, Steve knew. “You’re going to be disappointed as soon as you find out more about me. Is it true that Stark can hack everything?” 

A spark of curiosity broke through the mask, but Steve chose to ignore Jake’s question for now. “Why do you think I’m going to be disappointed?”

Jake shrugged with one shoulder.

“I’m not the kind of perfect supersoldier they - you - have probably hoped for.”

Steve leaned back in his own chair and grinned. “Neither am I.” He tilted his head to the side and regarded Jake for a long moment. “Maybe we should start from the beginning.”

~~~ _before_ ~~~

If there was one of the many factions, groups and terrorist cells the Avengers regularly had to deal with that brought back all kinds of uncomfortable and painful memories for Steve, it was Hydra.

Dealing with them made him grip his shield tighter and stand up straighter during a fight and after.

Hydra had cost him so much, and they hadn’t learned a single thing in the seventy years Steve had been under. They hadn’t evolved from their tactics of terror, and they still employed the same strategies that had already failed them during the war.

Hearing their battle cries of “Heil Hydra” set his teeth on edge, and it brought back a whole slew of memories he’d done his best to push to the back of his mind, where he wouldn’t stumble over them and hurt himself on their sharp edges all the time.

Bucky.

Peggy and the life they now would never have.

The Howling Commandos.

Prisoners of War, locked in small cages and awaiting their certain death. Nobody had said it, but Steve had been able to read it in their eyes.

And, again and again, Bucky. 

Bucky, strapped to a table. 

Bucky falling.

The memories of Bucky were not easily ignored, Steve found, and they returned regularly, like bubbles from his sub consciousness, in the form of horrible night terrors and flashbacks.

So far, he’d been able to hide the effects of the nightmares that were caused by dealing with Hydra, and pretend he was a functioning soldier and leader to the Avengers, but it took a lot of effort for him to do so. The lack of rest had started to show a few days before, the symptoms eerily familiar from the time during the war, when one mission of the Commandos had melted into the next, leaving Steve and his men weary to the bone and eager to bring an end to the war.

Bring an end to an organization like Hydra.

They were aptly named, and they were out for something. SHIELD agents and analysts were busy trying to figure out what their goal was, and the Avengers were trying to stop them every time Hydra agents and robots showed up.

The worst thing about waking up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart and the expectation that an alarm would sound any minute now, warning everyone about an air raid, was that it didn’t matter what Steve tried to do after.

He just couldn’t go back to sleep.

His mind played tricks on him, leaving him unsure for long, agonizing moments whether he was in the Tower or in an active warzone; if he was in the present - the past now - or the future - the present. He could hear the sounds of his fellow soldiers breathing in one moment, a quiet rustle of weaponry and leather, and feel the coolness of the Tower’s air conditioning the next, and it took him long moments to differentiate between the things that were only real in his dreams and memories and those that were, for a lack of better word, _really_ real.

No matter where he was, _when_ he was, he knew that he had to get up, get moving. A nervous, jittery energy was settling in his bones, threatening to overwhelm him and rendering him useless if he didn’t do anything.

If he was in the war, he could go and do some rounds, check in with the patrols and make sure the camp was secure and no stray Wehrmacht soldier had accidentally stumbled over them.

If he was in the Tower - well, Tony had a great gym, and nobody complained when he worked out in the middle of the night or destroyed the occasional piece of gym equipment.

It wasn’t as if the other Avengers had any place to scold him about that. Thor and Hulk were able to break just as many punching bags as Steve without even losing a thought about it, and if the number of times he’d found Clint or Tony awake in the middle of the night was an indicator of insomnia and the wish to avoid nightmares, they weren’t off any better than him.

Steve had read their files. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had nightmares - not that he knew for sure, because they didn’t talk about it. When their paths crossed in the middle of the night, they usually didn’t talk at all. Occasionally, one of them joined the other in their attempts of banishing the nightmares, no matter if it was mindless television watching, working with a punching bag or fixing up a car. Both Clint and Steve had spent many hours down in the workshop with Tony, handing him tools and watching him silently work through an engine and his problems.

Sometimes, Steve found himself wondering how well he would hold up if he had to go through some of the things that he’d read in his teammates’ files. They were remarkable people, every single one of them, and Steve found himself admiring them all, each in a particular and slightly different way. It was an honor being on a team with them, and even if it had taken time, Steve had learned to accept and like them, even Tony, who was still an arrogant punk who couldn’t follow an order unless he knew exactly where it came from and that it wouldn’t come back to hurt him.

There wasn’t always time to explain his orders, not when they were in the middle of a fight, but slowly, Tony had started to trust him a little, and Steve’s own unwillingness to blindly follow orders and his ability to think for himself had gone a long way in assuring that in a moment of crisis, Tony was a little more willing to follow his lead.

Rolling himself into a sitting position, Steve inhaled deeply and held his breath for a long moment. His heart rate was slowly returning to something a little less panicked, and his head was clearing up enough to eliminate any doubts about his current whereabouts. His shirt stuck to his skin with sweat, and Steve ran both hands through his hair and sighed audibly.

He was in the Tower. He was safe. The war was long over. They had won, or so everyone told him. He was safe. His team was safe.

He got dressed and went to the gym, knowing that he wouldn’t go back to sleep this night.

~~~ _now_ ~~~

Jake’s elbows were resting on the surface of the table, his chin pillowed on his folded hands.

“Just a coincidence that we ended up in the same situation?” he asked with a grin, his teeth flashing bright and even.

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed softly. “A big coincidence.”

~~~ _before_ ~~~

When he opened his eyes, he took a long time to realize that something was wrong.

Too long.

His head was pounding fiercely, and his mind was blank.

Carefully and methodically, he took stock of himself and his surroundings. He was lying on a hard, rough surface, coldness creeping through his clothes and into his skin. He was arranged on his side, in a stable position, one of his hands folded carefully under his chin.

His head was ringing and every single muscle in his body hurt.

Even after getting the serum and after its results, or after the battle against the Chitauri, Steve hadn’t been so aware of how many muscles he had in his body. He could feel every single one of them right now. Even the roots of his hair hurt, despite the fact that those definitely weren’t muscles.

He had no clue where he was or how he had gotten there until he slowly twisted his head around and forced his eyes open, just to look straight at the bars of a cell, decorated with a familiar design.

Hydra.

His day was, apparently, just getting better and better.

With a barely bitten-off groan, he tried to sit up. The cell started to swim in front of his eyes, and nausea rose in his throat together with the bitter taste of bile. All he wanted to do was to curl up and wait for his body to stop throbbing, but he knew that he didn’t have that luxury.

He had to find a way out of this cell, or get a way to contact the Avengers, to come and get him.

Heavy steps came closer, adding to the agony. Despite himself, Steve tensed, only resulting in making himself feel worse. Vaguely, he recognized the symptoms of a concussion in himself, and when he opened his eyes again, not remembering that he had closed them, he realized that he was unarmed, his uniform in tatters and the blue fabric ripped in places, revealing bruise-mottled, scraped skin underneath.

The steps came closer and closer, until they finally came to a stop right in front of his cell.

Steve was more than aware of the fact that he should try to stay attentive, find out weak spots and a way to escape, to get back to his team, but his head was too heavy to be lifted and his eyes refused to focus for longer than a split second. If they had come to torture him, he knew that he was in no position to resist for a long time before they would break his body completely.

When a lock clicked and his cell was opened with the loud grating sound of metal on metal, he couldn’t do much more than whimper in pain and almost throw up all over himself.

His ears were still ringing, his focus narrowing until he wasn’t aware of anything beyond his own body. He tried to focus on his breathing, falling back on the breathing exercises he’d used in his youth in the futile attempt to keep his asthma attacks at bay.

By the time his head cleared slightly, a second body had been thrown into the cell with him.

Not a body, he realized slowly. A man. Broad-shouldered and fit, he jumped to his feet with an ease that made Steve in his current situation dizzy and faintly jealous.

His fellow prisoner was dressed in worn jeans, boots and a bright pink t-shirt. He was bleeding sluggishly from a cut on his forehead, and he was wearing glasses.

“Hey!” he yelled after the two guards who had brought him here. “I think you’ve forgotten something!”

They ignored him. Steve, who remembered all too well how Hydra had treated prisoners during the war, took a second to be thankful for that on behalf of his fellow prisoner.

He meant to say something, but all he managed was a weak groan.

The man jumped and fell into a defensive stance that Steve easily recognized, before he realized Steve was no threat to him and relaxed.

“Shit, man,” he said and exhaled loudly. “Didn’t see you there. I thought I was the only lucky son of a bitch who got caught by the crazy people. Are you okay?”

Steve grimaced. “Concussion,” he rasped out.

The other man cautiously stepped closer and dropped to his knees next to Steve, close enough for Steve to feel his body heat. He instinctively sought out the warmth and swayed toward the man.

“Easy,” he said, but he let Steve lean against his chest while brushing careful fingers against a throbbing spot on Steve’s skull. He was hard-muscled and strong under the shirt, Steve noted. He filed it away without second thought.

“Judging from this, you can count yourself lucky that you have only a concussion.”

Steve grunted a reply and the stranger laughed and helped Steve to arrange his body into a position that didn’t make him feel like throwing up immediately. He apparently had some experience with concussions.

“You should be in a hospital, with a cute nurse taking care of you,” he muttered, and in that second, he reminded Steve so much of Tony Stark that he had to laugh.

When the dizziness passed and he opened his eyes again, he found out that the fella even had a goatee.

~~~

When Steve opened his eyes again, his thoughts were much clearer, and the pain in his skull had almost disappeared.

His head was still tender where he’d apparently hit it, but this time, he could take proper stock of his body.

His uniform was ruined, almost the entire top half in shreds. It was ripped at the knees as well, and his gloves, belt and his cowl were missing.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” a voice greeted him cheerfully, and Steve remembered his fellow prisoner.

“How do you know it’s morning?” he asked and carefully sat up. 

The other man grinned widely and held up a bowl. “Breakfast. The most important meal of the day,” he announced. “You want some?”

Steve’s stomach gave a small twinge, and he nodded carefully and accepted the bowl and the plastic spoon he was handed. “How long was I out?”

“About a day, I guess,” he man replied before taking off his glasses and polishing them against the hem of his t-shirt. “You didn’t look too good there for a while.” He stopped himself, inspected his glasses and slipped them back on. “I’m glad they didn’t leave me with a corpse.”

Steve grimaced. “Me too,” he admitted. “I’m Steve.”

“Steve, huh?” The fella gave him a considering look before shrugging. “Call me Jensen. Everyone does. Even my sister.”

~~~ _now_ ~~~

Steve wasn’t sure how late it was. He wasn’t wearing a watch, and there was no clock in the room they were in, and it didn’t have any windows either. He couldn’t even ask JARVIS since they weren’t at the Tower, and he wasn’t willing to leave just for something as trivial as the time.

His inner clock insisted that it was late, that he had been perched on his chair for far too long, and that it would be a good idea to get up and move around a little.

Steve stayed put. “What about your family?” he asked. “You said something about a sister.”

~~~ _before_

It hadn’t been the truth, that his sister called him by their shared last name, but at that moment, Jensen hadn’t cared. His sister and his niece were the only people left who most emphatically did not call him Jensen, but he had started to make it a habit of not mentioning his niece when he was with people he didn’t know and who were a potential risk. His sister could take care of herself, but Beth was only nine, and Jensen had learned his lesson with Aisha.

For as long as he could remember, the only family Jake had was his sister. Sure, there were vague memories of a mother, but it was like a washed-out t-shirt, worn thin and with rips and holes in fabric that had grown soft, the print on the front almost gone with age. Jake’s memories of his mother were like that, and he was sure that he would be more bitter and angry, like his sister, if he had her memories of their mother. He’d never known the man who had contributed to his genetic material, and all he had been able to find out from his sister was that his father was not hers.

He’d never had the chance to ask his mother. He’d been too young, too scared by the yelling of both her and her then-boyfriend to ask, and then, she was gone and it was just him and his sister.

As it was, he did most of his growing up in the system, clinging to Jess like the annoying little brat she often accused him of being. Still, she never turned her back to him, not when he had been a rebellious teenager and not when he showed up at her doorstep, presumed dead and still shaken from the events in LA.

He wouldn’t risk his family just because he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut.

If asked, it was more than obvious that for Jake, family meant his sister and her daughter and nobody else. Sure, the Losers were close, closer maybe than family, but it was different, especially after the clusterfuck of Bolivia and Roque betraying them, and no matter how much time they spent together after that, Aisha never quite gelled with them the way Roque had, and the stress of their lifestyle made cracks form between them, made them distance themselves from the other Losers.

They weren’t family. They were something different. Sometimes, Jensen thought, it was as if the other Losers were like a part of his own body.

Losing one of them would be like losing a limb, unbearable and crippling. Losing Roque had been like that already, and he wasn’t sure they had gotten over his betrayal. There just hadn’t been the time to process everything.

They weren’t family.

He was okay with that.

~~~ _now_ ~~~

Steve looked up when the door was opened and Natasha stepped in, a cardboard holder with two paper cups in her hand. She gave him a brief look and slid the cups on the table, but she didn’t say a single word.

She didn’t have to.

Jake shifted on his side of the table, angling his body to let his appreciating gaze follow her as she left the room. 

Steve coughed politely, to get his attention, suddenly irritated, and Jake grinned, the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkling.

“You know,” he said, “not that I don’t appreciate the hospitality and all, but I’m kind of curious, myself.”

Steve dipped his head and busied himself with the cup of coffee in front of him. “I can imagine,” he admitted. “What do you want to know?” Carefully, he slid one of the cups over to Jake, who cradled it between his hands as if he was cold and needed the heat from the coffee to warm himself up.

“Her. She’s hot. You don’t know, by any chance, if she collects human body parts, do you?” Jake smirked, but when he noticed Steve’s confused face, he visibly focused. “How did this happen, in the first place? If I remember correctly, you were frozen. In ice. For seventy years. How can this...me...have happened?”

Steve had expected the question. It was one he had asked himself countless times in the past few days, and so far, he hadn’t managed to find a satisfactory answer to it. 

“There were...multiple theories,” he said slowly. “About your age, mostly.”

~~~ _earlier_ ~~~

“How much do you know about your fellow prisoner?” Fury asked, his attention focused on Steve.

The bruises on Steve’s pale skin were already fading to a pale yellow thanks to the serum, and he looked a lot better than he had when Natasha had found him and brought him back in. 

Steve shrugged. “Not much,” he admitted. “We were busy trying to escape. There wasn’t much time for small talk, and even if there was, I doubt I could remember much of it. Why?”

Fury very much doubted that Steve had forgotten everything that had happened, but he had read Steve’s report and he knew about the effects a concussion could have on a person’s memory. 

Next to Steve, Tony Stark shifted in his chair. He was fiddling with his cell phone, and Fury had no doubts that Stark was trying to hack into SHIELD’s network again. He suppressed a sigh and focused back on Steve, who had noticed Fury’s eye flickering over to his teammate.

“Tony,” he murmured quietly, and to Fury’s surprise, Stark actually put his phone away.

If anyone had forced Nick Fury to describe the relationship between these two, he would have chosen the picture of two brothers. Steve Rogers, the older one of the two, was earnest and a good man, the kind of person a father would be proud of, the kind of man people trusted and loved without condition, and Tony Stark was like the younger brother, brilliant in his own way, but still the little brat, unable to live up to Steve's glowing example and staying in his shadow. It was, he mused, as if Stark had been grudgingly admiring Rogers despite his best intentions not to, and was desperately trying to get Steve’s respect and approval.

"This is what our scientists found out, based on the blood sample they managed to secure," Fury explained.

A touch to his computer, and the information appeared on the screen behind him.

He didn't need to see it to know what it said. He had reviewed the information already, had talked about it with Hill, and they had come up with several likely scenarios as to how the Avengers would react when they found out. None of them had doubted the fact that they _would_ , in fact, find out - they knew the team's abilities well enough.

He watched them as they tried to sort through the information he'd provided: the picture, the service record, everything about the situations in Bolivia and Los Angeles, and finally, the results of the DNA test. Natasha and Banner were the first who understood, quickly followed by the rest, and Fury came in the rare pleasure of seeing Tony Stark speechless, his eyes widening in surprise as he parsed the data.

"That can't be possible," Banner said. "This information strongly implies that, whoever the guy is, he's Steve's son, which would make him..."

"...either very old or very young, and that picture doesn’t look like a toddler...or grandpa," Stark concluded when Banner trailed off. "Steve, anything you want to share with the class?"

Steve stared at the screen. "That...that can't be possible," he finally said. "I don't...I didn't...I never..." He blushed again before turning toward Stark. "How?"

"When a man and a woman really like each other..." Tony started before flinching and looking away. "I don't know, Cap," he then said. "Biology is really not my area." He actually sounded as if he was sorry he couldn't help Rogers.

“Some sort of accelerating aging process?” Bruce speculated. “Or an extreme slowing down, there was an article about the theory behind that I read a while ago.”

"We'll figure it out," Natasha promised. It was the first thing she'd said during the meeting.

"Yeah, and we'll find him," Barton added before moving and pouring Steve a glass of water. "Don't worry."

The prospect of two master assassins trying to find a person, Nick Fury thought, usually didn't do much to calm people down; but Rogers took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a split second, and then offered Barton a thankful smile.

His team was coming together and rallying around one of them.

It was a beautiful thing to witness.

Now he only needed to figure out how someone had managed to get their hands on Steve Rogers’ DNA without SHIELD’s knowledge.

~~~ _now_ ~~~

“Sorry.” The smirk was back. “No accelerated growing, and I think we both know who of us was frozen. Here’s a hint, it wasn’t me.”

Steve couldn’t quite suppress his snort. “Tony suspects they took samples that were collected in the thirties and used those,” he explained, a faint blush starting to spread across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. 

Jake frowned as he took that in. He had questions, and if he could ask them to his mother now, he would.

Unfortunately, she was long dead, and Steve seemed to know as much as Jake himself did, which was not a lot.

“How did you find out about this?” he asked, moving his hand in a lazy circle that included himself and Steve and the whole situation they had suddenly found themselves in.

Steve’s lips twitched into a grin. He did look a little like the guy Jake saw every morning in the mirror, the same eyes mostly. 

“You bled on my stuff.”

~~~ _before_ ~~~

“Jensen,” Steve said thoughtfully before smiling. It looked more gruesome than reassuring - the guy’s hair was matted down with dried blood, and he looked as if someone had been halfway successful in bashing in his skull. “How did you end up in a Hydra cell?”

Jensen poured a cup of lukewarm water and took a sip before answering. He couldn’t really tell the truth - Aisha’s intel about Max had led them here - and he settled on a noncommittal shrug. “You know,” he drawled, “how it is. You go for a picnic and suddenly, crazy people with guns show up and complain that you’re in their backyard...”

Steve raised his eyes and looked at him carefully. “A picnic, huh?” It was obvious that he didn’t believe Jensen, but Jensen didn’t worry about it too much.

He just shrugged. He hadn’t been supposed to be anywhere close to or even get caught by Hydra, but somehow, they’d realized that he had been busy hacking their systems and had surrounded him before he’d noticed. He sometimes got a little carried away when working with a computer, who could blame him for that.

There had been food close by, probably left by Pooch before they went to check out the Hydra base without Jensen. So, in a way, it had been a picnic.

His thoughts circled back to his team. Had they managed to escape the Hydra agents? Would they figure out where he was, and how long would it take them to come up with a plan to bail him out? 

_Would_ they come for him, or was he on his own? If Clay decided it was too dangerous, he might decide against a rescue mission.

No. Jensen took a deep breath. He was too valuable to his team, not just because of his knowledge and his role on the team. They wouldn’t just leave him behind. That went against everything Clay believed in. 

They would come for him. He was part of the team. They wouldn’t abandon him. He knew that.

Jensen was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for. He saw the cracks that had started to form between them. He knew that Pooch wanted nothing more than just go home and be with his family. He knew that Cougar hadn’t dealt with the events in Bolivia, that their sniper was growing steadily more desperate, and nothing Jensen did managed to pull him back from the edge. He could feel himself getting angry, getting careless, because there were days when he wondered what they were doing.

If there was even the most remote chance of them being successful and reclaiming their lives, their reputation.

If anything good would come out of their crusade, or if it would kill them all.

To distract himself from the morbid turn his thoughts had taken, he asked, “What about you? How did you end up here?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Concussion, remember?”

Jensen grimaced, and then he watched as Steve carefully climbed to his feet and stretched. The guy was built, muscles on top of muscles in a way that Jensen himself could only dream of. He looked dangerous and damn impressive, even bruised and bloodied as he was.

“Well, Jensen,” Steve said and grinned again, a devil-may-care grin if Jensen had ever seen one, “What do you think, should we try to get out of here before our gracious hosts decide to pay more attention to us?”

Jensen shivered at the thought. “Sounds like you have some experience with that,” he muttered. His brain was tugging at him, trying to make a connection, a memory triggered by that grin, but no matter how hard he tried, it just wouldn’t come together.

“Not myself,” Steve replied. “And it’s not something I want to experience. I’d rather get out of here.”

“Yeah.” Jensen looked at the bars and the heavy lock. “Just, how are we going to get out of here?”

There it was again, that grin, and from somewhere on his person, Steve produced a piece of wire. Holding it up, he said, “Trust me, I’m the man with a plan.”

~~~ _now_ ~~~

“That should’ve tipped me off that something was different about you, you know?” Jake mused. “The man with a plan? Seriously. That was a bad pun.”

Steve leaned back into his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “It wasn’t.”

“Yeah, it kinda was. What are you, a comic book hero?”

~~~ _before_ ~~~

It wasn’t public knowledge, and if it was up to Steve, it would never be, but he did know how to open a lock without the key.

He had learned it during a particularly taxing bout of fever, when his mother had kept him in bed and he’d been too restless and bored to read and there had been no paper to draw on.

Bucky had been the one to teach him, and later, Steve had picked up a few more tricks from the USO girls, the Howling Commandos, and recently, from Natasha.

Electronic locks were something he had, so far, let Tony or Natasha handle, but Steve knew several applications of a dame’s hairpin that had never been in their manufacturers’ original intention.

He kept those skills under wraps and guarded them almost as carefully as his nightmares. He gladly let the public and the press believe that he was content to just smash doors and walls in with his shield or with his bare fists.

The recent attacks Hydra had led against the Avengers worked in their favor. There were only a handful of guards to overwhelm once Steve had picked the lock of their cell, and Steve and Jensen knocked them out before they could ring any alarms. They took the guards’ clothes - the sleeves barely reached Jensen’s wrists, but the black uniforms were a lot less conspicuous than Jensen’s pink t-shirt or Steve’s ripped costume.

Jensen, he noted, was obviously capable of holding down his own, his movements quiet and economical. He moved like a man who was used to infiltrating enemy bases.

Jensen hadn’t admitted to anything, but in Steve’s mind, there was no doubt that the other man had been in the military at one point in his life. He followed Steve’s lead without hesitation, kept his attention focused and took care of any hostiles with an ease that spoke of years of experience.

However, now was not the time to ponder Jensen’s skills and the reason why he’d been a Hydra prisoner. Steve still didn’t remember how he’d ended up in the cell himself, but the fact that he was wearing the remnants of his costume told him there had been a fight in which he’d most likely been overwhelmed, and that meant that his shield was probably somewhere close by.

He had no intention of leaving it behind, but his first priority was to get himself and Jensen to safety and to contact the Avengers.

The piece of wire he kept sewn into the waistband of his pants had helped them to get out of their cell and into what looked like a more general part of an underground complex, judging by the lack of windows, but then, they found themselves in front of a keypad and a heavy steel door with no manual lock.

“Looks like we need to find another way out,” he murmured, but Jensen gave him a cocky grin and shouldered him out of the way with gentle force.

“Let me,” he said. He was holding one of the phones they had taken from their guards, and he was grinning in a self-satisfied way that reminded Steve of Tony Stark. They had a lot in common, he thought while keeping an eye on the corridor, Tony and Jensen, not just the flash of attitude he caught from Jensen as he worked on overriding the lock, but also the technical know-how.

Steve was very sure that the phone they had lifted from the guard had been turned off.

“So,” Jensen said almost casually as he worked. “Isn’t it freaking you out at all that there were almost no guards to make sure the prisoners stayed in their cells, and the security at that block was worse than in an Afghan cave, but they have state-of-the-art Hammer tech to protect whatever is behind these doors?” He looked up at Steve and reached for the gun he’d pushed into the waistband of his pants. “Maybe you were right and we should’ve looked for another exit.”

His teeth gleamed as he grinned. His thumb swept almost casually across the screen of the phone, now connected to the keypad with several blank wires.

The little red lamp over the keypad turned green, and with an audible hiss, the doors started to open.

The base rumbled. Steve and Jensen looked at each other, understanding immediately what was going on.

Explosives.

The base was under attack.

“I hope that’s the good guys,” Jensen muttered as the walls groaned around them, the vibrations noticeable through the soles of their boots. He felt a thrill go through him - had the Losers caused the explosion, had they come back for him? And if it was them, they had to disappear before anyone recognized them or tried to stop them.

He had to make sure Steve - who, Jensen admitted, looked better than he had any right to, what with the concussion he was probably still suffering from - had a way to get out of the base and to safety, and then, he had to disappear.

He had no idea how to do any of that, but he was sure that he would be able to figure something out.

He had to.

They broke into a run, steadying each other when another rumble almost swept them off their feet. Pieces of concrete exploded out of the ceiling, a small piece of shrapnel hitting Jensen’s cheek and leaving a bleeding cut.

They suddenly found themselves in the middle of a group of Hydra agents, shepherded in one direction, until, at a split in the hallway, they were separated. At the last possible second, Jensen slipped the phone into Steve’s hand. 

There was a bloody fingerprint in the middle of the screen.

 

Five minutes later, Steve found himself face to face with the Black Widow, who almost didn’t recognize him until she had him half in a headlock.

Maybe she’d just tried to hug him in the middle of taking out the group of Hydra agents around Steve. He didn’t know.

He didn’t ask.

“We didn’t cause the initial blast,” Natasha reported as Thor handed him his shield and Tony gave him one of the tiny communication devices, and Steve found himself hustled out of the base by his team and deposited in the back of a van with Sitwell, a scratchy blanket wrapped around his shoulders, answering questions and wondering if Jensen had made it out.

~~~

Jensen caught up with the Losers and silently crouched down next to Cougar, unwilling to admit how relieved he felt about being back with them and unable to hide it.

He nudged Cougs, and their sniper shifted slightly to the side to allow Jensen to take a peek through the scope of his rifle.

He recognized Steve easily enough, sitting there with a blanket wrapped around his body and people swarming around him, making sure he was okay.

Jensen exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing. 

~~~ _now_ ~~~

“How did you find me again?” Jake asked. He was balancing his chair on two legs, his feet hanging in the air, and he looked absolutely comfortable while doing so. He also looked older, more tired, as if the interview was exhausting him.

Steve could relate. He felt exhausted himself.

“I thought I’d done a pretty good job covering my tracks.”

“You did,” Steve allowed. “But not good enough to hide from SHIELD and Tony.”

~~~ _earlier_ ~~~

"Oh, hi, Daddy." Tony barely looked up from the car piece he was fiddling with. "How's it going?"

Steve grimaced and carefully lowered himself onto the couch in the corner. "I don't know," he admitted. "I never thought...I mean, first, there was the war, and none of us really thought about much past that. Dreamed, hoped, maybe, but not like it was going to be real, you know?"

Tony made a humming sound at the back of his throat, indicating that he was listening even while working.

"I never thought I'd have a kid," Steve burst out. "What do I do, Tony?"

That made Tony look up. "How should I know?" he asked back sharply, but he shook his head immediately and dropped the part he was fiddling with. "You do what you always do, Cap," he said. "The right thing."

"I don't even know what the right thing is," Steve confessed. 

"Well, maybe you shouldn't ask me for advice," Tony pointed out. "You know me and dad didn't exactly have a normal, healthy relationship. And we're not talking about someone leaving a baby on your doorstep here. We’re talking about a grown man. Who was a soldier. Aren’t you proud?”

Steve sighed. “I don’t know.”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah. Who would’ve thought? Captain America junior, a war criminal. That’s pure irony, right there.”

“Tony.”

“Yeah, yeah, so Fury says there’s probably more to the story, I get it. Still.”

“Tony.” Steve let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling. “He...he kind of reminded me of you, you know. He could easily be your son,” he muttered.

Tony put down the part he was fiddling with and frowned at Steve. “Really, he reminded you of me? Not Barton?” he asked, his eyebrows rising.

Steve shot him a look. “He was using a cell phone to get us out of there, not a bow,” he pointed out.

Tony chuckled and moved to sit down next to Steve. “Okay, spit it out,” he said and nudged Steve with his shoulder. “What’s bothering you?”

Steve sighed. “We need to find him,” he said. “We need to make sure he’s okay. Hear his side of the story, maybe. About Bolivia. And about what he was doing in a Hydra base.” He swallowed. “I want...I want to get to know him,” he admitted. “I want to know what kind of person he is. About his family. He said he has family. I need to know if there are more, Tony.”

“Fury’s probably working on it,” Tony replied thoughtfully. “Not sure he’d tell you when he found the kid, or what motivation he has...after all, if he’s your son, created from samples you gave after the serum...he _is_ half a super soldier. Even if his records don’t show it.”

“Tony,” Steve said, and Tony sighed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised before clapping loudly. “JARVIS?”

~~~ _now_ ~~~

“So...” Steve trailed off and raised an expectant eyebrow. “What now?”

Jake shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea,” he admitted. “You’re the one who dragged me here.”

“I wanted...” Steve stopped and bit his lip. He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d tried to achieve when he’d asked Tony and SHIELD to bring Jake in - he’d just known that he needed to see the other man again, talk to him and find out what kind of person he was.

How much of Steve there was in him. How much of himself he could find in Jake.

Mostly, he had been filled with so much disbelief. He hadn’t been able to parse the fact that this fella he’d met once was, in fact, his son.

That he had a son, in the first place.

Before he could express any of that, the complex shook with an explosion.

Steve looked up in alarm, his hand automatically reaching for a shield that wasn’t there. 

Of course it wasn’t. He wasn’t supposed to bring weapons, even if it was a defensive weapon, to an interview room.

“Stay here,” he told Jake in short, clipped words as he rose and took three long steps toward the door. “I’ll just go and find out...” he stopped himself, yanked the door open and left the room. He didn’t have to justify his actions. Even if Jake was technically his son, he was a grown man and basically a stranger. Keeping that in mind, he made sure the door was really closed and locked before he continued.

To his left, he saw Clint Barton, dressed in shorts and combat boots, his quiver resting on his bare back, his bow in his hand, reaching up for the ceiling and the hidden access panels to the ventilation system, and when he fitted his comm into his ear, he heard Maria Hill's voice, snapping crisp orders and receiving status reports from other agents stationed around the base.

He stepped up to Clint, their shoulders brushing slightly.

"What happened?" he asked.

Clint grimaced. "That's the intruder alert," he said, his voice sharp and controlled. "Someone tried breaking in."

Steve nodded and folded his hands together to boost Clint up into the ventilation system without being asked. He knew that the other man was more than able to get up there without any help, but it helped making him feel less useless.

He collected his shield and, tightening his grip on the familiar straps, he started moving toward the emergency stairs.

No intruder would be stupid enough to take the elevator, he thought, not when it could be turned into a deadly trap so easily. The stairs were a much more logical point of access, and if the intruders had passed this level already, if their goal was the level with the labs at the bottom of the complex, Steve could cut off their exit and do something to feel useful.  
Dimly, he was aware that it was late at night, only a skeleton crew around the base. Even SHIELD agents had to sleep, apparently.

"Intruders are three floors above you," Clint's voice filtered through the earpiece, and Steve made his way up the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could, taking two steps at a time.

When he heard the sound of gunfire, he abandoned stealth and quickened his pace, his steps echoing through the staircase.

"They are armed," Natasha reported. "But it looks as if they're retreating." She sounded disbelieving, and that alone was enough to make Steve’s internal alarm bells ring loudly.

He hurried up the next flight of stairs and burst through the door only to find himself face to face with Natasha, who was wearing her usual uniform. Unlike Clint, she had found the time to get properly dressed, or maybe she hadn’t even gone to bed in the first place. Considering the coffee run a few hours earlier, Steve had his suspicions.

Natasha didn't even blink when she saw him. She had her gun in her hand, and she was aiming at an open part of the ceiling.

"Barton?" she asked.

"I'm following them," Clint calmly replied. "They're in the vents, and they know what they're doing."

They could hear the sound of gunfire through the comm, Clint hissing something under his breath and voices shouting briefly in the background before falling quiet.

For a long moment, silence filled the comm, then Clint's boots appeared from the ceiling and he swung down.

"Professionals," he said briefly. “They used the vents as a shortcut. No way to catch them, they knew exactly what they were doing." He looked unhappy about it, and Steve found himself wondering how Clint had managed to get three floors up in such a short time.

Steve took a carefully measured breath and slowly released it. More SHIELD-agents appeared around them, and belatedly, he remembered to ask Clint if he was injured.

Clint narrowed his eyes slightly, as if he wasn't sure whether Steve was serious or not. "I'm fine, Cap," he finally said curtly. "They didn't hit me."

Steve didn't know what to say. He just nodded and turned away. There was nothing for him to do, and SHIELD's agents were better equipped to figure out what the intruders had wanted, why they had been here in the first place, how they'd managed to breach the facility and where they were hiding.

This wasn't Steve's job.

He wondered how anyone would find SHIELD’s headquarters, and which reasons these people would have to break in.

His heart rate picked up, and his breath caught in his throat.

“This is a rescue attempt,” he told Clint as calmly as he could. “They’re here for Jensen.” Without waiting for his teammate to understand, he turned toward the door and raced back to where he’d left Jake.

~~~

“Jake!” Steve called out, and Jensen flinched slightly. It was enough for Steve to notice even from the distance.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Jake said softly. “I can’t stay.” He dropped the wire he’d used to get out of the interview room.

“I figured,” Steve dryly replied. “Otherwise, you would’ve stayed put, like I told you.”

“I told _you_ I’m bad at following orders,” Jensen quipped with a twist of his lips. 

“I remember,” Steve said and took a step closer. “Jake...”

“Don’t.” The humor left Jensen’s eyes as quickly as it had come. “I can’t, man. Not now. There’s...there’s still things to do. Names to be cleared. That kind of thing.” He pushed his glasses up his nose with the knuckle of a finger. “This was kind of a shock, you know? I need time to get used to the thought that you...that my dad is Captain America and not some drunk loser who fucked off without caring.”

Steve nodded. “I understand,” he replied. If there was one thing he understood about Jake, it was this, the need to stick with his team and stand by them until the end, and the disbelief about their current situation, the inability to take it in stride and just accept that they were related.

Steve wouldn’t leave one of his men behind. He didn’t expect Jake to abandon his team, not even for him.

They didn’t know each other. They needed more time to get to know each other, time they didn’t have right now.

Time they probably would never have.

He hesitated for a second, then he held out his hand.

He could see the thoughts crossing Jensen’s face, disbelief and suspiciousness and relief chasing each other in rapid succession until Jensen had himself under control again and came to a decision, stepping closer to shake Steve’s hand.

“When this is over,” he said and looked up, into eyes that looked so much like his own.

“Yes,” Steve agreed. his fingers tightened around Jensen’s for a split second, and suddenly, Jensen found himself pulled into a brief hug, a hand patting his shoulder.

A second explosion shook the walls. The sharp wail of the alarm was cut short, making Steve flinch slightly.

“That’s my ride,” Jensen said.

“You better go, then,” Steve agreed. 

“I’ll...see you around,” Jensen said, and then, he spun around on his heels and sprinted down the hallway. He knew exactly where he had to go, Steve noticed.

He didn’t do a single thing to stop Jake, not even when a group of agents came bursting around the corner in hot pursuit, their weapons trained at the far wall, where Jensen had been just moments ago.

Slowly, Steve went back to collect his empty coffee cup from the interview room and the rest of his belongings from the observation room next to it. He slipped his phone into his pocket and left SHIELD’s headquarters as soon as the lockdown was lifted, not saying a single word.

The sun was coming up when he walked down the streets toward the Tower, but that was okay with him. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, not after the events of the past few hours. There would be nightmares, and he expected that Jensen - Jake - would play a role in them now, next to Bucky, Peggy and the Avengers.

There was nothing he could do about the nightmares, and he had done everything he could for Jake.

~~~

"What's with you and getting shot by crazy chicks?" Pooch yelled before glancing at Aisha, who was perched in the passenger seat of the van. "No offense."

Aisha shrugged. "None taken," she blandly replied, and for a split second, Pooch tried to remember that Aisha could kill him in his sleep and probably get away with it before his attention was inevitably split between the traffic around them and the man moaning in the back of the van while clutching at his leg.

"How is he?" he asked while swerving around a too slow going Ford, trying to stick at least marginally to the traffic regulations. While he was used to driving in war-ridden countries abroad where a traffic code was just a vague idea rather than strict rules one had to adhere to, the cops didn't know that, and if there was one thing he didn't need right now it was getting pulled over.

Not when there was a very obvious gunshot wound in Jensen's leg, a wound that was bleeding a lot.

It probably looked worse than it was, he reasoned while taking a sharp corner. Jensen was still moaning, and if he had enough strength to talk, he couldn't be that bad off. It only became critical when he fell silent, they all knew that from experience. Unbidden, the memory of the Hondurian general rose to the forefront of his mind.

"He'll live," Clay said dryly. "Looks like the crazy chick missed his major blood vessels. You're lucky, Jensen."

Jensen grimaced, thinking back to everything he’d found out while in SHIELD’s custody. “I’m feeling lucky,” he admitted around another wince. “Thanks for the rescue, guys.”

He could feel the hard plastic of a small flash drive in the pocket of his pants, and even through the pain in his leg, he had to admit that he was curious about the information saved to it.

And he was glad that he was back with his team. Things could go back to normal now, if it were up to him. They had a job to do, and their goal was still to bring down Max.

And then, they could go home. They could stand down and let the cracks in their team heal, and the cracks in themselves too.

He couldn’t wait to introduce Steve to the rest of his family.

~~~ 

“You gave him the flashdrive?” Natasha asked quietly.

Steve didn’t look up from the panorama outside of Tony’s windows. “Did you shoot him?” he asked back.

Natasha gave him a look and pulled out her phone. “Stark’s newest tracking system,” she informed him as she pulled up a program. “As long as he doesn’t lose that leg, we’ll always know where he is. Fury promised to keep an eye on him. If anyone ever finds out he’s your kid...we’ll be able to react and keep him safe.”

Steve nodded. He could keep an eye on Jake as well, make sure he was okay.

It would give him something to think about when the nightmares hit again.

Taking a deep breath, he turned away from the view and faced Natasha with a smile. “Thank you.”

Natasha shrugged slightly. “He’s your family,” she replied, as if that was reason enough for all the things she, and the rest of his team, had done for him.

And maybe it was.

 

~end.

 

_bonus after-credit scene_

It was a beautiful day, the sun bright and warm in the cloudless sky.

It was, Jensen thought, the perfect day to watch a soccer game, and the Petunias were on fire and scoring more goals than they let in, which allowed him to lean back and relax and bask in the pride of being Beth's uncle.

Habit more than anything made him keep an eye on his surroundings, gaze sweeping across the parents and spectators and looking out for anything weird or unusual. After the Losers had disbanded for the moment to avoid getting caught and to recharge their batteries in peace before they would attack Max again, using the data on the flashdrive Steve had given Jensen and hopefully clearing their names once and for all. Jensen knew that Pooch was with his family and that Cougar had flown to Mexico, and he was sure that he would find Clay and Aisha easily if he just googled for destroyed and burned down hotel rooms.

For the moment, he enjoyed the sun on his face and the fact that the Petunias were winning.

His next sweep of the crowd was uneventful, but when he turned his head the next time, he saw the man.

He was sitting alone, a little distance away from anybody else. He wore sunglasses, his blonde hair was impeccably parted and combed. From what Jensen could see, he was dressed in a brown leather jacket and a checkered shirt.

He nudged his sister gently. "I'll be right back," he promised. He didn't wait for an answer before he slowly picked his way up to the man and sat down next to him.

"Jake," the man greeted him, a faint smile on his face.

"Steve," Jake answered and allowed his gaze to flicker briefly over the man. "What brings you here?"

Steve hesitated for a moment. "I asked Tony to look up your next-of-kin," he finally blurted out. "And I thought...I wanted to meet them."

Jensen nodded and thought for a moment. "You alone?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then." Jensen stood and made an impatient gesture. "If anyone asks, you're my long-lost brother. Can't tell people the truth, they'd freak out. You don't look old enough to be my dad, after all," he said and tilted his head to the side. "You coming, or what?"

Steve snorted, but he stood and slowly followed Jensen back to his seat.

"That's my niece, right there," Jensen explained as he sat down. "Number twenty-one, she's the star of the team. And this fine lady right here is my sister Jess." He leaned into her for a brief moment before straightening again. "This is Steve."

“Steve, huh?” she said, but she sounded friendly enough, and Jensen slowly exhaled and dared to redirect some of his focus to the game.

“I thought you’d be taller,” Jess said almost casually, one eye on Steve and one on Beth. “You look taller on TV.”

“Ma’am?” Steve asked, confusion written over every line of his body, and she laughed and bumped her shoulder against Jake’s.

“Did you find out anything? About who is responsible for him?” she asked.

Steve shook his head. “No, ma’am, not yet,” he replied. “Tony’s looking into it.”

“Well, let us know if he finds out anything,” she said. “And Steve? Welcome to the family.”

He grinned at that, a wide, open grin that made him look about as old as Jake, who chose that moment to nudge Steve’s side with his elbow and decide, “Hey, we should get you a Petunia shirt for the next game!”

His excitement was blinding, Steve thought, and considering he regularly wore the American flag, a little pink wouldn’t hurt him.

It was a small price to pay for having a real family again.

 

~~~really the end now :D


End file.
